Cobalt
by Bainaku
Summary: A collection of 1,000-word one-shot snippets taken from the daily doings of Metro City's finest blue-bodied baddie.
1. Chef

**Commentary**: 1,000-word one-shots for _Megamind _as inspired by bits of random vocabulary, because I love any excuse to write and any excuse to think about this movie for five more seconds. =) Hope you enjoy!

Want to see a word written? Let me know (PM/IM me!) and if I use yours, I will surely credit you and thank you kindly too.

This scribble is set post-film.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own this franchise.

* * *

**COBALT**

**Word One: CHEF**

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"Your feeble human brain cannot _begin _to fathom my greatness."

So says Megamind as he takes a tray of not-quite-chocolate chip biscuits from the oven and deposits it, contents smoking faintly, on the stovetop. His cape flutters. His thin arm whips out in a grandiose, showy flourish.

"Behold, Miss Ritchi," he exults. His fingers give a spidery flex. "I have made you _cookies_."

Some of the chips on said cookies burst like little brown volcanoes.

"Uhm," allows Minion. He lifts a bulky finger. His mouth opens and his snaggly teeth flicker. "Sir, those look a little, err, toxic—"

"_Nonsense_, Minion," scoffs the city's protector. "Why would I want to poison Miss Ritchi?"

It's Roxanne's turn to talk and she does, her eyes lingering on the tray. "Vestiges of evil still lurking in you, maybe?" she ventures. "Dastardly doings on the agenda?" The cookies have a sooty, cedar kind of odor: not entirely unpleasant, but certainly unwelcome. She wrinkles her nose. Her kitchen smells like a woodchipper on its last legs.

Megamind seems both pleased and ruffled by her ponderings. "Rest assured that any evil left in me is not _vestigial_, but fully functional and wholly at my command," he half-sneers. His eyebrows pump. He's wearing eyeliner—damnit, probably her best kind—and his goatee is particularly groomed today, sharp on the blade of his chin. His sneer softens, though, into a smile, and Roxanne's heart flutters.

So does her stomach, just a bit. _Eau de Woodchipper_. It's in vogue.

"The only thing dastardly about this doing," Megamind insists, "is its temporal state. Soon"—he thrusts a fist skyward, but he's still got on an oven mitt and so the effect is diminished somewhat—"these cookies, these _nuggets of deliciousness_, will be _devoured_ and you will find yourself _bereft of their presence_—"

"Bereft, oh no," Roxanne opines, deadpan.

"Such scorn!" Megamind chides her. "Such contempt!" He peels off the oven mitt and throws it aside onto the dinette. "Such, such!" And he settles for, "Such _dubiosity_!"

"That," Roxanne assures him, "is not a word."

"Never heard of it," Minion agrees. He is still examining the tray of cookies, his gills flared apprehensively, tendrils rippling in kelpy fear. He does not want his master's new girlfriend to suffer an early and untimely demise. "Sir, forgive my skepticism, but I think these are best thrown away. Far away. Mars might be a good start: you did build that intergalactic slingshot, sir—"

"Try one," Megamind suggests: not to Minion, but to Roxanne. He's ignoring the fish. His voice drops from the tone of an overlord to a peddler's suggestive, hopeful wheedle. He has the grace to tack on, a brief afterthought, "Please." And then, the killer: "They _are _for you."

Roxanne looks at the cookies. God, they're horrible: charred little discs that have filled her kitchen with their reek and a thin fog of white smoke. They are lumpy where cookies should not be lumpy: they are strange colors too, some of them nearly purple, others a weird glisten-y blueberry-black. Minion makes a small noise of revulsion. Roxanne feels the way that noise sounds.

But she looks at her boyfriend with his huge wet shining puppy eyes and his floury elbows and his quivering lip—oh God, it actually _is _quivering, an earthquake on his mouth—and her resolve gives a treacherous little wobble, not that it was terribly solid in the first place. It doesn't help that he's wearing an apron, _her _apron with all the hearts on it that her mother gave her for Christmas, and the way it hangs on his hips and bony butt is just, well—

"Irresistible," she accuses him. She is defeated. Roxanne Ritchi, reporting live: crushed like a bug under the heel of a bulbous-headed metrosexual wearing a woman's apron, ladies and gentlemen. Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.

She can't really mind, though. Megamind just looks so _delighted _that he isn't losing anymore, even a battle wherein the question is whether Roxanne will nibble the results of his culinary endeavors.

"Try one?" he echoes. He indicates his creations with a splayed hand, as proud of them as a new father is of his gurgling infant.

Minion winces as Roxanne agrees, "One." To the fish with the gorilla-robot avatar as a body, she poses the question, "Poison control. Do you have the number?"

"Hey!" That's Megamind, all indignance and feigned hurt.

"Ready to go," Minion affirms. He pointedly holds up her cordless phone and Megamind sets about calling the fish a disloyal traitorous sardine. Said sardine shoots Roxanne a look that is both apologetic and promising of a decent burial. White roses, maybe. Asiatic lilies at least.

Megamind's protests fall into silence as Roxanne Ritchi darts out her fingers and takes up one of the scorched chunks from the tray. It's hard and hot in her hand; it leaves a viscous dark smear on her thumb. She blows on it to cool it. She holds her breath next, mostly so she won't smell it, and draws it near to sink her teeth into its crispy, bulging, swollen middle.

Crumbs spray down her lips, her chin. The cookie fragments over her tongue and Megamind watches, his hands clasped. Minion presses the phone's 'talk' button. The dialtone lends the kitchen a low droning _bzzzzzz_.

Roxanne Ritchi chews.

Swallows.

"Huh," she allows after a moment, and licks her lips. She gives Megamind a startled, halfway suspicious look. "Do I taste… barbecue sauce?"

"I have been told that a chef never reveals his secrets," sniffs her boyfriend importantly.

"Villain once, hero now—sure. But chef," Roxanne reminds him, "you are never." She holds up the remainder of the cookie, brow arched.

Megamind considers this. Sweeping his cape up over his arm, he positions it such that it flares in a dramatic swoop.

"You taste," he hisses, "honey _mesquite_."

He wiggles his eyebrows.

"Huh," Roxanne says again. Lifting the cookie, she toasts Megamind, pronounces his handiwork, "Not bad!" and takes another bite.


	2. Boom

**Commentary**: Second wee smidgen. Written in just a few minutes—little more serious than the first one. Sorry this took so long! Computer issues, oi. Hope you enjoy it!

Want to see a word written? Let me know (PM/IM me!) and if I use yours, I will surely credit you and thank you kindly too.

This scribble is set post-film.

* * *

**COBALT**

**Word Two: BOOM**

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An explosion—and another, and another. The propane tanks at the back of the warehouse went up like dominoes fall, a staggered _fwump, fwump, fwump_. Metal screamed, screeched: it was the fire escape actually escaping, gone in a coil of heat and pressure. Fragments of brick and mortar flew heavenward and came down again like rain, their drops so sharp, so jagged, so painful. They _tink-tink_ed across Minion's cranium—one nicked Roxanne's ear. She looked and saw smaller bits, pebble-sized ones, rattling around the curved seam of Megamind's high collar. They bit into his neck. His blood was purple, she noticed, beads of slick brightness on his sky skin.

"Down!" he snarled at them, his narrow body a silhouette in the flames. His chest heaved. He motioned frantically with his dehydrator gun. "Down, DOWN!"

Minion, so accustomed to following Megamind's orders, buckled his robotic avatar forward and folded his furred arms over his glass-domed head. So accustomed to _not _following Megamind's orders, Roxanne attempted to lurch aright.

She scrabbled at the fallen beam shielding the three of them. Her nails skittered across the hot metal and Megamind's opinion of her action filled her left ear at full volume. "ROXANNE!" he shrieked, the playful _Miss Ritchi _moniker gone the way of days wherein villains had better sense than to detonate their lairs with civilian camera crews locked inside them. His hands grabbed at her, the long fingers clumsy with nerves, sweat, fear. He called again, hoarse, raw, "Roxanne, _no_—!"

Roxanne thought of her lead cameraman, who had two little girls at home—of Joe too, who carried the boom mic and a new ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. She squinted into the blaze and opened her mouth to beg Megamind to help them. She felt his fingertips on her wrist, clenching. She sucked in a breath—

A dark object then, from nowhere: it smashed into her temple and her gaze Big Bang'd a sudden galaxy of a trillion dazed stars. Her knees seesawed, folded, first one and then the other. She sank slowly. Her perception of the fire's burning brilliance dwindled to a needle-prick pinpoint; she barely noticed the warehouse's floor as it rushed up to claim her in an embrace of gritty cement. She heard vaguely the sound of her name, over and over, and in her vision the color of the sky loomed and darkened and faded to finite blackness, and for a time she knew no more.

She woke, though, to the wail of sirens.

_Wee-oooo-wee-ooo-wee-ooooo_: the refrain roused her from oblivion and she blinked her eyes open, sifting soot from their lashes. She coughed. She sat up. Her head throbbed and one side of it felt sticky, and when she pressed her fingers gingerly over that stickiness and lifted them free again, the digits came away red.

Her stomach churned, rolled up into her throat. She swallowed and forced it down again, squeezing her eyes shut. She wiped her fingers across the warehouse floor's stippled concrete, leaving behind smeared streaks which would in later photographs look like clawmarks. She rocked onto her knees. She wobbled, swayed: stood.

"Minion?" she croaked into the surrounding skeletal ruin. "Megamind?"

The fire-eaten building creaked in reply. Roxanne's heartbeat trebled in her chest, drummed in her ears too. Licking ashen lips, she staggered sideways and looked across the destroyed warehouse. She saw Minion nearby, stunned into silent stillness but alive, and she hoped next for a flash of blue—

She _did _see blue. She squinted and relief made her joints watery: littered across the floor were small glowing cubes, one to represent each of her camera crew. She counted twice to be sure, and when she _was _sure, she barked rasping laughter. Her head hurt so much for it that she almost sat down again.

"Megamind?" she called a second time, tentative but tremendously worried now. "Megamind? _Megamind_?"

And then, in the rubble: more blue, a winter's dawn. She ran for it, or tried to run. She hooked her hands over chunks of concrete and forced them away—she grasped at him, only just able to reach him.

"No," she said, small. He was cold. She repeated, "No." She cupped his cheeks. She pulled, first gently and then not at all, her motions frantic. He was heavy, and limp, and when she got her hands under him, she hefted him to her chest. His head lolled on her shoulder, bruised along its cresting curve like a fruit.

She held him in a moment of frozen horror, and wondered but one thing: _is he_…?

A twitch. His fingers. She saw them move out of the corner of her eye and felt them next, a flutter over her hip. He cupped it, nigh _groped _it: he coughed into the side of her neck. He smelled like a flue. His lashes brushed her cheek and he groaned, turning his head a little.

She leaned back to look at him. Suit obliterated, cape in tatters, covered in abrasions of all severity: such was her boyfriend, the city's hero. He smiled at the sight of her. He'd soot in his teeth and his breath was a chimney's exhale, and Roxanne nevertheless welcomed its press across her cheeks.

"Oh, good," he managed, a croak. Black dust puffed from his nostrils. "I didn't lose."

Roxanne laughed, disbelieving and delighted at once. The sound came out ugly and lodged in her chest; her bloody temple provided a stinging pulse of pain. Cradling him near, she shook her head. She rasped in reply, "I dunno. Looks like a lemon to me, buddy. This place is a wreck. So are you. I'm pretty sure the bad guy got away too—"

His hand on her face to the creen of the sirens, pressing, trembling especially. His other arm folded around her and he pulled her to him, a desperate clench. His mouth worked against her shoulder. He said:

"No." Clutching Roxanne, he finished, insistent, "I didn't _lose_."


	3. Nefarious

**Commentary**: Three for three! I am taking down your words: rest assured they aren't being ignored. =) Here's one sent to me over IM that just begged for a scribble. Thank you, anonymous word donor—I wish I knew your name!

Thank you too, everyone, for the comments and favs and encouragement. I deeply appreciate it.

Want to see a word written? Let me know (PM/IM me!) and if I use yours, I will surely credit you and thank you kindly too.

This scribble is set pre-film.

* * *

**COBALT**

**Word Three: NEFARIOUS**

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Snow fell over Metro City. A thin sheet of ice crusted the banks of the rounded bay. Lights from offices in the skyscrapers gleamed pale yellow, like eyes, through sheens of frigidity and frost. Trapped by the deepening chill in her apartment, Roxanne Ritchi tipped her head against the arm of her couch. She sipped from a mug she kept clutched nearby her heart, reveling in the taste of the hot cocoa therein; she sighed, flexing her toes in their woolen socks. She looked out across the city, its spires and steeples and somber quiet, and realized in the space between slow, sweet-scented breaths that she was lonely.

Her gaze drifted to the phone, contemplative. But who to call on a night like this, when the streets were treacherous and the comfort of a warm coverlet beckoned? Who would, _could_ come? Who cared enough for her company to risk a broken ankle, a bruised hip, a busted ass?

A silhouette vaulted itself into existence on her balcony, a blurry blot against the cityscape. A thing that looked like a robotic gorilla opened the balcony door, leaned into her apartment, and said cheerily, "Good evening, Miss Ritchi!"

…oh.

"Minion," she voiced, surprised and gingerly pleased. She tightened her hands around her hot cocoa. She observed, "Your entrance—a little, uh. _Obvious _today."

The aquatic creature in the glass dome atop the avatar body bobbed a nod. "Yeah," he agreed. He wiggled his rubbery fingers at her. "Cold hands, you know. Announcing myself is the least I could do." He glanced around. He grinned. "Nice place you've got here."

"Thank you," she allowed, unable to help smiling back. She hesitated, drew her legs up beneath her. "Do you—err. Want some, ah, hot cocoa, Minion?"

The fish fanned his fins delightedly. "Oh, I've always wanted to try it! I would _love_—I mean!" He jerked in his bowl, sloshing the water. He gave her a look that was a mixture of longing, stern, and apologetic. "I have to take you to him, Miss Ritchi. Orders." He drew himself up, puffing out his chest—or what passed for his chest. His tendrils gave a resigned flicker. "You understand."

He advanced—but stopped when Roxanne stood and held up a finger. "Just a second," she insisted. She fearlessly turned her back on the enormous home invader and went into her kitchen. Her socks slipped on the tile a little. She emerged again moments later, this time carrying a small box. Minion tried to examine it. Smirking, she hid its logo against her ribs.

"Nuh-uh," she denied. And then, "Well! Orders, you said—right? Let's get on with it."

Minion produced a familiar bag.

Ten minutes saw Roxanne eye to jaundiced eye with a sneering supervillain.

"So nice of you to join us this evening, Miss Ritchi," Megamind purred. He launched into an immediate monologue regarding inclement weather and shool—what?—delays and frostbitten woe: Roxanne watched him, beaming. Kidnapping aside, at least now she had company.

Megamind's breath fogged in the air. His teeth gleamed like Chiclets and the spikes on his collar were, she had to admit, a little intimidating in the lair's shadowy, scattered half-light—

"—you're smiling. Why are you smiling? Minion! Why is she _smiling_?"

Megamind's face loomed near her own, his green eyes huge as shooter marbles. He prodded her cheek with a long, lean finger.

"Hey," he demanded, "are you sick? Your face is contorted into—into a _rictus _of something like joy and that, Miss Ritchi, is not permissible here."

"Why not?" Roxanne arched an eyebrow. "Smiles aren't allowed?"

"On the faces of my terrified, helpless victims?" he hissed, scandalized. "_Never_. This is a place of despair, of anguish, of _horrification_—"

"I can't be happy to see you?" asked Roxanne.

Megamind paused, mouth open, one hand held high in a brandish of flared fingers. He stared at her. A muscle in his cheek jumped. He flushed, coughed: swept his cape aloft.

"_Why_"—he attempted to snarl this and squeaked it out instead—"would you be desirous of _my _nefarious visage?"

"No one ever says nefarious."

"My contemptible—"

"No one says that either."

"_Answer the question_, Miss Ritchi."

Roxanne smirked and said instead, wiggling one arm free of her bonds, "I brought a present." She found and thrust the small box at him. Minion, spotting it in Megamind's startled hands, leaned over her to look at it.

"Instant hot cocoa mix," said Megamind.

"Instant hot cocoa mix!" exulted Minion.

Silence stretched across the lair: for thirty seconds. A minute.

"What wicked deception is _this_?" Megamind challenged at last. "_Happiness _at being taken hostage? _Gifts of sipping chocolate_?"

"I was snowed in," Roxanne offered. "And my cable was out. I was bored." She gestured to the surrounding machinery. "I'm not bored anymore. And I'll bet"—she smirked at Megamind—"_you _have cable."

"…over seven hundred channels," the city's menace acknowledged. He lowered his voice to a sinister snicker. "Stolen from the unsuspecting neighbors, of course." His mouth pursed, a smug ring. "Why should I allow you to _indulge _in my burgled broadcasting, I wonder?"

"It's too cold outside for a huge battle, that hot cocoa mix is imported from France and is delicious and you _owe me_ for handing it over"—she ticked reasons away on her fingers—"and admit it, Megamind, you and Minion were bored too."

Bored being, in all their cases, the operative word for _lonely_: they looked at each other across the lair and understood this together.

"Your logic is flawed," muttered Megamind, but she saw him weakening. Even supervillains, it appeared, had an aversion to windchill.

"It's a holiday," Roxanne insisted, voice soft. "Take a break. Have a drink."

Megamind contemplated: finally heaved a sigh. He dropped his gaze back to the hot cocoa box. Tapping the image on its cover, he growled, "What are these—these little white bits floating in the liquid?"

"Marshmallows," Roxanne supplied, and found herself smiling again.


	4. Banana, Human, Awkward

**Commentary**: Three smaller scribblets here, together totaling 1,000 words, each written in no more than ten minutes. Hoo! For timelines, respectively: post-film, pre-film, post-film.

Many thanks to **MegaPotterBender **for the word _banana_, and to **nineteennintytwo **for _awkward_. I had a lot of fun with both—I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them!

Want to see a word written? Let me know (PM/IM me!) and if I use yours, I will surely credit you and thank you kindly too.

**Dragons Lover1**:Thank you for reading my work closely enough to notice my colon usage—but personally, I don't so much think they're wrong as they're a bit unorthodox. I _could_ use a comma here, true, or a semicolon there (never a hyphen, NEVER I SAY), but why bother when a colon is just so much more… exotic? And pineapple-flavored? (Oh God a hyphen I _lied_—)

Secondly, I think regularly starting sentences with 'he' and 'she' and the like could be a bad thing if done such that the story comes across as stilted—that's certainly not my aim here. Have I done that? Disrupted the flow? Gypped the jive? If so, please note me with some particular examples and I'll work on it! =)

**Warning**: Innuendo! Nothing too racy, but if you're not looking to imagine anything frisky, skip the third drabble. …and, uhm. The first one too.

* * *

**COBALT**

**Word FOUR: Banana**

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He slips into her apartment without fanfare, but with the key she had made for him.

It is dark because one in the morning has come and gone already, and also because the shutters of the blinds over the kitchen window are drawn shut, blocking out the city's sure glow. Megamind wearily steps past the table, around the breakfast bar; he deposits his narrow body on the couch. His head falls back against the cushions and he sighs, rubbing his wrist over his eyes.

"Long day?" comes the whisper.

Scissory elbows stabbing the air, Megamind jerks. He rolls his gaze sideways and there is his girlfriend, standing at the hall's entrance in her nightshirt and nothing else, oh my. He squints at her pear-shaped silhouette, entranced, and manages, "Long, uh. Yes. Very, very… long."

Which her nightshirt is not. Megamind finds himself quite thankful for such small—err, short—blessings.

Drifting across the room's separation, Roxanne reaches out a shaded hand and traces it along the rounded arc of his skull. Her small palm is warm and supple and slow; her fingertips drift down the divot at the nape of his neck. A grouchy pluck at the hem of his shirt is administered, idle. Her other hand feathers along his cheekbone, cups it.

"Sorry to hear that," Roxanne sighs, but she doesn't sound sorry at all. Because it is dark, he can't tell if she's smiling or if she isn't: not until her mouth touches his ear, anyway. A warm crescent against his flesh, her grin quivers as she nibbles the pliant lobe. The city's protector shivers, gripping hard and helplessly at the couch.

Her breath trickles down his throat and she asks, "Mind if your day gets a bit… longer?"

"Well," he says, struggling for composure, "I might spare you a _little _time. An infinitesimal… say, fraction."

A quiver in the darkness: movement. She steps around the couch, loops her arms about his neck, and ladles herself into his lap. He braces her, balances her, hands flared at her hips. She laughs softly, sweetly against his jutting collar, "Ah-_hah_. Is that a banana in your pocket, Megamind, or are you just happy to see me?"

This puzzles the former villain greatly. "This suit has no pockets," he reminds her, "and I find it quite disturbing that you pick _now _of all times to discuss fabrics and fruits in such synchronized synonymy—"

"Happy to see me," Roxanne answers her own question, and leans up in the sharp shadow of his chin to kiss him.

* * *

**Word FIVE: Human**

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A wet, hitching racket filled the lair. Said lair sported excellent acoustics and the noise bounced along the technology-speckled walls, a vile scrape, a treacherous grind. Minion winced.

Pausing in his monologue, Megamind looked up at Roxanne Ritchi and frowned. When she had finished coughing, he informed the reporter, brows drawn together in a tight black line, "You sound terrible."

Was that a twinge of concern on his narrow face, in his thespian's voice? Glaring blearily at the supervillain, Roxanne speculated. "I'm sick," she replied, and clarified, "the flu. Everyone at the station has it." She sniffed—or tried to sniff. Clogged nostrils granted her no mercy. Her joints throbbed; her sinuses pulsed. Morose, she retched out another cough, muttered miserably, and sank forward against the hostage chair's leather bonds. Her head bobbled, drooped. The spindly drill of a nearby doomsday device almost made intimate friends with her eyebrow.

Footsteps, soft clicks. Shining boots wandered into her vision, then a hand, and Megamind touched her chin with gloved fingertips and pushed it aloft. He studied her face, expression inscrutable. The suede slide of his thumb fell along her cheekbone, tickling.

Roxanne wrinkled her nose, shivered, and sneezed into Megamind's face.

He considered this for a few seconds, stone still. Drawing back, he provided Roxanne a tissue swept from seemingly nowhere, used another to wipe his face, and snapped his fingers dismissively. "Take her home, Minion," he sighed.

"What?" said the fish.

"What?" said Roxanne. It sounded more like _whudd_.

"Take her home," Megamind repeated. The small chair at the edge of the room squeaked as he took it. Opening his arms for a brainbot, the villain tapped his wrist against his creation's sleek pseudo-skull and purred, "In her current state, Miss Ritchi is clearly unable to fully appreciate the great extent of our—our _evilness_. We must retreat and _strike again_"—he made a stabbing motion with two fingers, miming a cobra's assault—"when the time is right."

"Malevolence in moderation," realized the subordinate. He fluttered in his bowl, beaming. "Excellent, sir!"

"And quite poetic on your part, Minion!" Megamind praised his friend. His palm flattened over the brainbot's casing. "Now," he insisted, "Miss Ritchi—home. If you would?"

"Right away, sir."

A moment later the bonds loosened, slipped sidelong. Vaulted over Minion's faux-furred shoulder, Roxanne surveyed the lair's resident blue menace. He lifted his eyebrows at her—wiggled them.

"Softie," she accused.

"_Never_," he snarled.

But his lime eyes, soft indeed, held hers until the blindfold bag plunged her world into filmy, potato-smelling darkness.

* * *

**Word SIX: Awkward**

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His mouth twitched. He bit his tongue—ran his fingers down the narrow strip so silken. They slipped. Roxanne giggled. _Giggled_! Her shoulderblades jumped with each small sound.

"Oh," Megamind hissed, stilling his hand, "right, yes, you're mocking me, you—you _she-demon_. That's _so _helpful."

"Try again," she encouraged him. The darkness around them shivered: she was laughing still, unable to help it. Covering her mouth with her fingers, she hid her mirth in her lifeline and leaned closer to him.

Megamind obediently made a second attempt. Victory evaded him despite his best efforts. Frustrated, he threw up his hands and accused, "Foul contraption!"

Roxanne smirked.

"Abominable—"

She reached around, unsnapped her bra, and rolled her shoulders. The harness fell between them in a splay of satin.

Megamind's breath caught. "—deceptively, uh, alluring apparatus of _doom_—"

Capturing his hands too, she guided them elsewhere.

Megamind fell quiet.


	5. Ten

**Commentary**: Ten scribblets, a hundred words apiece, all pre-film. Much gratitude to **hawkfire111 **for _music_—the other words are mine.

My first piece of the new year. =) To everyone: thank you, and may you know happiness as the next few months unfold.

* * *

**COBALT**

**Word SEVEN: Music**

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Nine o'clock. Footsteps in the dark, drumbeats of a marching concerto. Stone walls ensure the sound carries on forever: _bap-sshh-bap-sssh-bap_. Mingled in with this stentorian melody is a queer kind of softness, though. The keys to the cellblocks sing _ting-ting-ting_, whispering freedom through the slats of their little metal teeth.

The sounds stop. The blue child who was listening to them opens his eyes and blinks at the tall silhouette paused beyond the bars that make up one surface of his world's six.

"Goodnight," says the warden. He moves again a moment later: _bap-ssssh-bap-ting-ting-ting._

With this lullaby, the child sleeps.

* * *

**Word EIGHT: Rendezvous**

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Nine o'clock. The boy grins, cupping his hands around the thing he has just made. It is a hovering glowlight. It will frighten away the cell's lingering shadows. For now, it sparks faintly.

Footsteps: _bap-sssh-bap-ting-ting-ting_.

"Oho," says the warden, "is that a firecracker? Contraband!" His hand snakes between the bars. "Let's have it."

Eager, the boy hurries over. He slips the glowlight into—above—the warden's palm. Their fingers touch.

The warden's eyes shine crisp with curiosity—and something else, something that could be pride. "Show me what it does," he encourages, and the boy beams into the scattered darkness.

* * *

**Word NINE: Foreshadowing**

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Nine o'clock. Gone. The boy is gone. Looking into his cell, the warden sees only the weird fish in his canister—wheeling about frantically—and a bunched-up blanket.

To keep panic down, he searches for the boy himself. It doesn't take long to find him hunched in a stairwell, cheeks wet. Hearing the warden approach, the child looks up a little. Thickly he says, "They hate me."

Noting the boy's flesh so blue in the spill of moonlight from the nearest window, the warden replies, "They won't always," and wonders how long it will be before his words ring true.

* * *

**Word TEN: Judgment**

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Nine o'clock. The child pulls his arms over his head, trying to ignore the sounds of his neighbors. Grunts, muttered expletives: they creep through the darkness, poisonous vines. He hears talk of malice, maiming—of murder. He is a bad boy, true, but some of his fellows here, oh, they are bad _men_, and the difference between men and boys is as heapingly huge as the difference between the stars and the moon. Chest tight, he listens only because he expects another sound, a hopeful _bap-sssh-bap-ting-ting-ting_.

But the warden, who saw the boy's first headline today, has gone home early.

* * *

**Word ELEVEN: Epiphany**

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**

Nine o'clock. Staring skyward, the boy leans back against the park's hillside and cradles his friend protectively in his elbow. "Look," he whispers, gesturing with the fingers of his free hand. "_Look_, Minion. How bright they are—how… how _shining_."

"Stars are like that, sir," Minion agrees gently. At his master's narrow glance, he amends, "But they are _particularly _fantastic tonight."

"Wondrous," finishes the boy, satisfied. Hugging his subordinate's bowl against his chest, he listens. The crickets chirp—the wind sighs. A dog barks in the velvet distance.

The boy realizes suddenly that freedom is not the jingle of keys.

* * *

**Word TWELVE: Growth**

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**

Nine o'clock. He studies himself in a mirror in the men's bathroom in the park, the bulb overhead aflicker, Minion at his elbow (and eyeing, in distaste, the urinal's carpet of stained ice). Chuffing his thumb over his chin, he hisses, "_Behold_."

"Oh, I'm beholding. Urgh. What _is _that, sir? Someone of your stunningly superior intellect should—"

"Minion, I'm trying to have a moment."

The fish snaps to attention. "Sorry, sir. My fault." Fins flutter apologetically. "Do continue."

Nodding, he flares his fingers across his jaw, resumes, "_Behold_."

Beneath his lifeline lurks the superbly sinister shadow of new stubble.

* * *

**Word THIRTEEN: Friendship**

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**

Nine o'clock. They bring to the prison infirmary a low shivery shadow, a thin thing wrapped in the tattered remnants of an orange jumpsuit. "He was trying to steal food," one officer begins. Holding up a small tin that reads _Bloodworm Brine Flake Fiesta_, she clarifies, "Uh, _fish _food."

The warden, speechless, looks at the creature on the bed, all knobby knees and glaring ribs. Gazing back with his fever-green eyes so brilliantly bright, the child seizes the tin and taps a little of its contents into his minion's bowl.

His hands are trembling, but he does not look sorry.

* * *

**Word FOURTEEN: Moniker**

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**

Nine o'clock.

"You are _insane_," the woman snarls. She kicks her feet; her teeth flash.

"You," he gloats hoarsely, his heart thump-thumping so hard it threatens to choke him, "are my first hostage _ever_."

"Hostage? _Hostage?_ This—it's… we're at a _library_, you, you—"

"Megamind."

For a moment her struggles wane. Straining, she looks over her shoulder. His arms are tight about her middle; he hitches her higher and her cheek brushes his strange blue forehead.

"What?" she asks, disbelieving.

"My name," he exults, "is _Megamind_."

Her eyes roll in the dark: from sheer fear and awe, he suspects.

* * *

**Word FIFTEEN: Manners**

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**

Half past nine. Sirens wail. Metro City Library is covered in a bubblegummy substance that is both bright purple and prune-smelling, and in Metro Man's arms hangs the stick-figure villain who put it there. Megamind's nose gushes. He laughs, eyes unfocused, expression dazed. Roxanne Ritchi, who was set to interview the city's most distinguished librarian for the ten o'clock news and got a hostage situation instead, feels a pang of fleeting pity for the guy. She offers a tissue.

"Dang 'oo," Megamind manages, and takes it.

Roxanne stares and tries to decide if a polite villain is ironic or sweet.

* * *

**Word SIXTEEN: Optimist**

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**

Nine o'clock. To Minion the warehouse is just that: a warehouse. A giant rusting metal box on the city's outskirts, it sports broken windows, questionable graffiti, and a cot in the corner that has been gnawed on by a family of raccoons. Throughout: the reek of wild animal and abandonment, neglect.

Megamind sees something else. Minion's bowl angled against his chest, he settles gingerly on the cot, gestures aloft, and sighs, "Home sweet home, right?"

Starlight shimmers down through holes in the roof.

Minion notes his master's slight smile, the only clean thing in this place, and agrees, "Right, sir."


	6. Pity

**Commentary**: Post-film. Not quite as happy as the others. Many thanks to **Demothi **for the word. =)

**EDIT**: Apologies for some of the formatting errors. I have fixed them.

* * *

**COBALT**

**Word SEVENTEEN: Pity**

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**

"There's a package, Miss Ritchi!" Minion sang in the hallway. Shuffling into the kitchen, he fanned a series of envelopes across the table's surface, crowning them with a papery oblong wrapped in red twine. Said twine scuttered over Megamind's coffee cup. Absorbed in the morning paper, the household's resident genius took no notice of the invasion.

Roxanne Ritchi, however, looked over her spoonful of oatmeal at the new arrival. She caught sight of the label and beamed. "It's from my mother," she relayed to Minion. She abandoned her breakfast. Taking up the package, she unhooked the twine, tossed it playfully at her boyfriend, and began to peel away the wrapping with eager fingers.

"Oooh!" Minion enthused. "She's in Europe, isn't she? Maybe that's—"

"Something rose-scented," Megamind put in, peeking across the fringe of his newspaper. His long nose gave a twitch. "I detect also… _spearmint_. And _jasmine_."

"You can smell all that?" Roxanne paused in her dismemberment of the package.

"You cannot?" scoffed Megamind. He folded the paper in a resolute, rustling _shk-shk_ and vaulted a smirk over the pile of morning mail, purely smug. "Your weak human nose is to blame, I imagine. It only stands to reason that it would be unable to match the capabilities of my own _magnificent_ proboscis—"

"Proboscis, wow."

Megamind's smirk melted into a scowl. "Mock me _not_, Miss Ritchi. Finish opening the package." Lifting his cup, he took a swig of its contents: slammed it back onto its saucer next. The steaming liquid sloshed. "See for yourself whether or not I am"—he sneered and pumped his dark brows for emphasis—"_correct_."

Shrugging, Roxanne slid a fingernail beneath a fold, ripped it aloft, and looked down into the wrapping. She frowned. Intrigued, Minion leaned in to preview the package's contents.

"It's—" He stopped, uncertain.

"Soap," finished Roxanne. She picked up a tissue-clad bar, read the label. "Rose." Fishing through the others in the package, she confirmed, "And spearmint, and jasmine." The multicolored lumps fell together as she nudged them aside, glum. She waved away Megamind's impending gloat too.

"Don't bother. I surrender: you were right . Who sends _soap _all the way from Europe anyway?" Groping for her oatmeal bowl, she shook her head. "Seriously. _Socks_ would've been better. Or"—she stabbed at her breakfast with a grouchy spoon—"_something_."

Megamind gingerly fingered one of the soaps. "You have multitudes of socks."

"Are you trying to say I don't have enough soap?" Roxanne fired back.

"I am content with your current stock of glycerin globes," denied the genius. "Maybe it is your _mother _who is trying to say you don't have enough soap."

"Ugh," Roxanne opined. She rose and took up her dishes. "More coffee?"

"No." Furling his fingers over his cup in a shield, Megamind glanced at the soaps again and voiced, "It's not a terrible gift."

"I pronounce them _unwanted_," disagreed the reporter. She made a cutting motion with both hands; silverware clattered. "Too flowery for me. I prefer fruity, citrus-y scents—"

"May I have them, then?"

Roxanne blinked. "Huh?"

Retrieving the dishes from her startled hands, Minion reinforced, "I believe he is asking if he can take possession of the soaps, Miss Ritchi."

And the clarification: "The fish's musing is perfectly precise."

"Hey, sure, whatever floats your boat." An expression of concern flitted over Roxanne's features. "Won't they dry out your skin, though? You use that expensive moisturizer—"

"Lubrication is _essential_," insisted Megamind, and Roxanne disguised a snort as a cough. He touched her fingers gently. "While your worry is well-placed," he reassured her, "I do not intend to use these particular soaps to bathe."

"Not sure how I'd feel about you smelling like a florist regardless." Brows a curious arch, Roxanne asked, "What are you going to do with them, then?"

The genius gathered the package's contents in the curve of an arm. Plucking one free—spearmint, by the label—he studied it, rolling it over a blue palm, and admitted, "I'm not entirely sure yet." He glanced at Roxanne and smiled. "It will astound you, doubtless."

Roxanne rolled her eyes. The morning continued. She forgot about the soaps.

Days later, she came back to the apartment for lunch and stepped into the kitchen. She called, "I brought bagels! And bloodworms!" She gave the bag a cheerful rattle.

"Oooh! Coming, Miss Ritchi!" crowed Minion. "I'm almost finished with… this… LEVEL!" Tinny hooting noises sounded from the guestroom and the fish-man hissed gleefully, "Fifty cakes, _hah_!"

Grinning, Roxanne turned to deposit her things on the table. She froze in mid-motion.

On the table's surface waited three tiny animals: a crimson giraffe with long tongue extended; a green lion caught in a yawn; a purple-pink panda clutching a sprig of bamboo. They looked real enough that Roxanne almost expected them to start moving. The giraffe's spots were painstakingly outlined, the whorls of the lion's mane an exquisite exercise in patient sculpting. Even the panda's lunch had leaves on it.

Carefully, Roxanne picked up the giraffe and brought it as close as she dared. It was cool, waxy under her touch—and it smelled like roses.

"A hobby he developed in prison," Minion said from the door. She looked up and saw him standing there, his expression mixed fond and regretful. "Soap carving. As I understand it, it helped to both occupy his thoughts and pass the time."

Words stuck in Roxanne's throat. Silence persisted a moment, two—she traced a stunned fingertip over the giraffe's markings. Finally she managed, "This—Minion, it's… it's _wonderful_. He could do this and—didn't anyone _know_?"

"There's an orange lye tiger on the warden's desk," Minion affirmed.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Roxanne seethed. Tears of indignant fury threatened. She replaced the giraffe and reached for her friend instead. Softly she whispered, "That's not fair, Minion."

"No," said Minion, taking her hand. He squeezed it and Roxanne felt his anger, a faint but unforgiving clench. "It wasn't, was it?"


	7. Trigger

**Commentary**: Post-film. =)

* * *

**COBALT**

**Word EIGHTEEN: Trigger**

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Sixteen paces from Roxanne's door, the back of Megamind's neck prickled and he paused. The cheery clatter of his bootheels on the hall floor engaged an abrupt ceasefire. Outside the building the wind sighed; in the apartment nearest his elbow, the low tinny drone of canned laughter signaled someone caught in the throes of a reality show. Scents of evening meals drifted throughout the corridor: macaroni and cheese here, corned beef hash there. Normal, normal, normal. And yet…

Something was wrong.

Megamind's eyebrow twitched. In a gesture greased by the fluidity of habit, he slid his hand alongside his hip and into the folds of his coat, where he found the sleek stock of his dehydrator gun sticking up out of his pocket. He unholstered it, flicked away the safety—under his thumb the device said _whmmm_—and started forward again. On suddenly silent feet he catwalked his way to his girlfriend's apartment. There he studied the unassuming silver doorknob for a moment, head cocked, nostrils flared. He inhaled once, sharply.

Yes, oh yes: _devilry_. He could smell it. Tendrils of conniving plot hung thick in the air, grasping tentacles made of malice and mischief—or so he imagined. His hand tightened on the dehydrator gun and he licked his lips. In his ears his pulse ratcheted high; his throat clenched with his heart's excited feverbeat. Leaning forward, he pressed his cheek flat to the door's surface. He closed his eyes. He concentrated—listened.

At first: nothing. He heard no sound and that was all right, because Roxanne wasn't due home for at least an hour and Minion had a tendency to power down in the afternoons. Letting out his breath in a small huff, Megamind rolled his jaw against the door's grain and opened his eyes again. He glanced down the hallway, furtive: but there were no lingering footprints, no sinister silhouettes. All manner of treachery in the building apparently existed only in his imagination. Resigned to this fact, Megamind groped for his keys and started to lean away—

Soft patterings then, faint fluttery footsteps beyond the door. Megamind froze, lips parted. The sound persisted and joined another, a hushed whisper of voices; a floorboard creaked. Something like paper rustled.

Megamind distinctly heard one person say to another, "Sssshhh! If we're not careful, we'll never pull this off! It's got to be perfect or he'll—" The last bit of the statement fell into unintelligible muttering. It sent a rill of cool anticipation up Megamind's spine regardless.

Sweat sprang into the seam of the recent hero's palm and he grasped at his gun once more, emotions a whirlwind. Part of him was flattered that some shady conglomerate thought enough of his capabilities to afford him the caution of such a careful ambush. A greater portion of his being, though, was incensed at this method of intrusion.

His jaw tightened. How dare they invade his _girlfriend's_ apartment? What blatant cowardice was _this_, that they ignored his lair—which was admittedly not very hard to find—and chose instead to infiltrate the household of an innocent citizen?

A sudden thought occurred to him. What if Roxanne had come home early? What if these—these _scoundrels _had gotten to her first?

An exhale much like a bull's enraged snort jetted from his flared nostrils. Lifting his gun such that it bobbed at level with his sternum, he fished his keys from his pocket with his free hand. He flipped through them, found the one he desired most, and fit it neatly to the lock. He made certain to rattle it theatrically.

"Ssssh!" someone within the apartment insisted a second time. "He's coming!"

"You bet I'm coming, you foul little worm," Megamind growled under his breath. The lock clicked and he shoved the door with an elbow. It squeaked open. The keys hung beneath the knob like some forlorn ornament and Megamind left them there, stalking into the apartment beyond.

It was dark. In the kitchen the normally docile curve of the faucet gleamed like a sinister shadow-snake; the placemats on the table were puddles of oozing blackness. The floor-to-ceiling windows breaking the apartment proper from the outdoor landing had been covered, curtained. A faint hum crept through the floor and Megamind recognized it as the dryer running in the laundry room.

He stopped. His heart gave a painful lurch. Minion would never leave the dryer running to nap, and it was so—so _quiet_…

Where were his friends? What had happened to them?

From the apartment's relative quiet eeked a sudden giggle. The slight sound sent a spray of red over Megamind's vision and, with a snarl, he leapt toward its source. He cleared the couch in a single bound. Landing on the rug in front of the television, he brandished his gun high and—

Light: an explosion! Founts of shredded colored paper assaulted him from all directions. Tiny trumpets erupted into song and amidst the chorale of a collectively shrieked, "SURPRISE!" there was _laughter_—

Megamind instinctively fired into the seething mass of weirdness: once, twice, thrice. The first shot went wide. The second two hit home and transformed both a towering cake and the woman holding it, one Roxanne Ritchi, into small steaming blue cubes.

Said cubes _tink-tinked _across the confetti'd floor beneath a banner that read _HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGAMIND _in malicious spidery letters.

Minion, a noisemaker canted up out of his bowl, leaned down to pick up the Roxanne-cube. Rolling it amidst trembling palms, he accused, "Sir, oh _no_. You dehydrated _Miss Ritchi_!"

He thrust the evidence at his boss. Megamind took it—no, _her_—and cradled it, startled. In his hands the little block vibrated, buzzed.

"Minion," Megamind said heavily after some seconds of deliberation, "prepare a pitcher of water. And"—he gestured emphatically, juggled the Roxanne-cube, caught it, clutched it close again—"the couch."

"Er… the couch, sir?" pursued his subordinate.

"Yes, Minion." The Roxanne-cube displayed between thumb and forefinger, Megamind sighed, "I will be sleeping there tonight."


	8. New

**Commentary: **Post-film. =) Sorry for not posting many of these. Am I still a fan? Of course. Always. I'm just a bit ill right now, and busy too. Still, though, I'll try to scrape some time and energy together to do a few more snippets before I'm finished.

On another note, thank you so much, everyone, for giving me 100 reviews on this work. It's the first time anything of mine has ever garnered that many, and I feel both deeply appreciative and incredibly awed. Know you have my astounded gratitude!

* * *

**COBALT**

**Word NINETEEN: New**

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Rubble everywhere, gray stacks and scattered clumps of it. Disaster area. Closed off. Yellow-taped. Familiar, familiar, familiar—Roxanne picked her way easily through the wreck until she came to the cause of it. Balling her fingers into a fist, she knocked on the leg of her boyfriend's newest enormous robot walker-fighter-thingy. _Tung-tung-tink _sang the call. Overhead, the glass dome of the massive machine hissed and swung upward. From its fogged interior a thin figure climbed, hands grasping.

He vaulted, landed next to her. "Well," he said, thrusting his thumbs into his collar to neaten it, "that went better than expected, I thought." His eyes rolled to her and the corner of his mouth twitched. So did Roxanne's fingers—she longed to touch his smile.

"Decent," she agreed. "But you missed a spot."

She pointed. Megamind turned a little on his heel to follow the line of her gesture, and together they studied the small spire of stone nearby that was indeed still standing, a snarl of spurting pipe twisted around it. A trellis of wind fell between the pair and the ruin; dust stirred. The giant robot creaked behind them, commiserative.

Megamind frowned.

"So I did," he observed stormily. Cloth bunched, muscle flexed, light flashed: he snatched his dehydrator gun from his pocket and, without flourish or fanfare, fired it low. _Bloop! _In a flicker of brilliance the ruin disappeared. Left clattering in its wake was a glittery blue cube.

Another creak: this time the leather of the holster as Megamind slid his weapon lovingly back into hiding.

Roxanne strode over to the cube and plucked it from the ground. She rolled it carefully between her fingers, then over her knuckles, and finally pitched it back toward Megamind, who fumbled it before making it disappear down his sleeve. His arm opened for her next, summoning—asking. Dust puffing under the toes of her flats, she went to him. She fit neatly under his elbow and flush against his side; he breathed slowly, methodically into the swell of her, and together they stood for a moment, looking around.

Suddenly he gestured. "Maybe there," he wondered. It wasn't exactly a question. Across the hewn landscape and horizon his fingertips walked, one-two, one-two. Roxanne's gaze followed them.

"What?" she nudged.

"I don't know," he said, but he did know, and he grinned and looked at her from the corner of a star-green eye. "The garage," he professed. It came out in a spurt. A flush crept over the hinge of his sharp cheek, lavender in the afternoon's wane. "The garage," he tried again, "yes, perhaps there. It could. Uh. Ahem." Those long fingers of his came back and fiddled somewhere under his chin. Roxanne felt his arm shudder. "It could go there."

A moment of silence. He leaned into her, then: gingerly, hopefully. He wasn't heavy despite that he ate almost the whole sugarbowl every morning with his cereal, his form so limber, his touch so tenuous. Roxanne, ever the fan of surety, clutched her arm around him and half-hugged him until his breath whooshed out in a pleased sigh.

He asked, "Do you want a garage?"

"Well, my car's pretty small," she responded. "I don't need a garage for it." She sawed her lip. "But," she went on, "I thought _you'd _want one—a garage, I mean. For, you know. Your…" She waved: at his gun first, next the looming creation behind them. "…stuff."

"You mean as a lair." He blinked.

"Yes."

"No," he denied immediately. "A garage would be too small, too—too _obvious _for my needs. My lair will perhaps be subterranean. Sprawling, certainly—"

He stopped. His throat worked, bobbing blue like a fisherman's lure, _omp-omp_. Under Roxanne's rubbing fingertips his spine stiffened and he looked away from her across the wreckage. There was anxiety in his profile, fear in the flicker of his lashes.

"Megamind?" she prodded.

_Tikka-tikka-tikka_: a few pebbles caught in the giant robot's rivets disembarked and fell in a scatter. Megamind swallowed again, harder this time.

"A garage," he managed. "It's usual, isn't it? Perfunctory in its inclusion? A standard addition to any suburban household—"

Roxanne deadpanned, "Megamind."

"Normal," he bit out, and looked at her in a manner almost wounded. "Normal"—once more, with feeling—"like, you know. Everyone else's home." He threw his thin arm in the air and shook it, indicating a neighborhood as yet unbuilt. This world, _their _world, was still all orange construction clay crisscrossed by the lines of their shadows. One day it might be suburbia. Now, though, it was new.

"Don't you want it to be normal?" he asked. "Our home?"

Their home. Normal.

Roxanne closed her eyes. Considered, briefly, the idea of those two things together: their home, normal. Megamind cutting the grass behind a white picket fence while their small yap-yappity dog ran back and forth behind its rungs, its pink tongue lolling. Roxanne herself with two tall tumblers of lemonade in the shade of a blue-shuttered house—their glasses clinking, tuh-_ting_! A mailbox with its red flag up. Minion in his apron in their kitchen window, holding out a tray of cookies—

Roxanne wrinkled her nose and laughed.

"What?" demanded her boyfriend. "_What_? Is something humorous? What is it?"

Turning in his haphazard clutch, Roxanne seized at Megamind's sharp cheeks. They shivered like blades under her fingers, too sweet to cut: she grasped them, pinched them, dragged him to her. She kissed him hard until his knees quivered, the left and then the right: she nudged hers between them to keep him steady. When she was done with him, she drew back, smacked in satisfaction, and said, "I asked you to break ground for the foundation with a giant city-defending robot. What about that suggests I'm expecting anything of ours to be normal?"

Still a little wet from the kiss, Megamind's lips quirked. "Ah," he allowed. His hand slid down to hers. "Yes, well." His thumb caressed. "You do have a point, Miss Ritchi."


End file.
